1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a water cooling stretch for a controlled cooling of wire, small sections, and ribbed concrete wire coming out of the rolling heat. The water cooling stretch is comprised of water boxes containing cooling water pipes and guide grooves arranged between the water boxes.
2. Description of the Related Art
When rolling wire with subsequent air quenching, it is technologically conventional to pre-cool the wire by means of a water cooling stretch. After exiting from the last rolling stand of the finishing block, the hot rolled wire passes through a water cooling stretch comprised of several water boxes wherein in each one of the water boxes several successively arranged cooling water pipes are provided.
Since the wire rod at the conventionally high rolling speeds of up to  greater than 120 m per second must be guided tightly and precisely, the inner diameters of the cooling water pipes and of the guide grooves are matched substantially to the wire diameter. Since, however, increasingly larger diameter ranges must be produced in a manufacturing line, for example, from  less than 5 to  greater than 25 mm, this wire diameter range can no longer be covered by a single cooling pipe diameter. For example, for the diameter range of 5 to 25 mm at least three different cooling pipe diameters are required in order to be able to perform an optimal and defined water cooling.
When changing the wire diameter, it is thus required to change also the cooling water pipes and the guide grooves so that considerable downtimes result and, moreover, when a manual modification is carried out, errors such as incorrect selection of the cooling water pipes and imprecise alignment can occur.
In order to avoid such a complex modification process, European patent document EP 0 317 785 B1 proposes a quick-change cooling stretch which is comprised of several parallel portions for a certain wire diameter range, respectively, wherein each section is provided with several cooling units, units for cleaning with water and, optionally, drying units. By rotation about, for example, 180 degrees about a common axis of rotation, the sections with a suitable diameter range can be aligned with the advancing axis of the wire rod.
In addition to the high expenditure of arranging each section by means of a pivot device on an axis of rotation, the expenditure in regard to ensuring the required water connection to the individual cooling units for a rotation of, for example, 180 degrees, is also significant.
In German patent document DE 42 00 272 A1 a device for controlled cooling of the wire rod is proposed for improving the adaptation to different wire rod diameters, wherein the device comprises a series of water boxes with fixedly installed cooling water pipes. Each cooling pipe is provided with different guide elements for the different wire rod diameters. The guide elements are arranged at the ends of the stationary cooling water pipes so as to be exchangeable by means of a sliding device.
For a change of diameter of the wire rod the guide elements are thus simply exchanged. Even though with this device a simple adaptation to different wire rod diameters is possible, the actual cooling action for the different wire rod diameters, however, is performed always in the same cooling water pipes. For large deviations between the wire rod diameter and the inner diameter of the cooling water pipes, the desired optimal and defined water cooling action is no longer ensured.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a water cooling stretch which can be adapted in a simple way by exchanging the cooling water pipes to different wire rod diameters without causing, by exchanging cooling water pipes and guide elements or guide grooves, lengthy downtimes or additional costs as a result of an erroneous exchange.
In accordance with the present invention, this is achieved in that the entire water cooling stretch is mounted on a support frame which is parallel-slidable or rotatable, wherein the water cooling stretch is comprised of several, preferably three, parallel and adjacently arranged cooling pipelines of different inner diameters, comprising cooling water pipes arranged within water boxes and guide grooves connecting the cooling water pipes external to the water boxes, wherein the cooling pipelines are arranged adjacently to one another such that by parallel movement or pivoting of the support frame perpendicularly to the wire rod guiding line any desired cooling pipeline, comprised of cooling water pipes and guide grooves, can be moved into the wire rod guiding line so that the wire rod can thus be introduced into all of the cooling water pipes.
With the measure according to the invention of arranging the required cooling pipelines for the different wire rod diameters, comprised of correspondingly sized cooling water pipes and guide grooves connected with one another, parallel and adjacently to one another on a slidable common support frame, the required change of the cooling pipelines can be performed in a simple way by displacement of the support frame. The otherwise required modification work and alignment labor, required otherwise for each individual segment of the water cooling stretch, are eliminated. Also, the risk of manual modification errors can be reduced.
According to an advantageous embodiment of the invention the cooling water supply to the cooling water pipes within the water boxes is realized for several cooling water pipes by means of a common nozzle head with parallel and adjacently arranged nozzles with different nozzle openings, wherein for each inner diameter of a cooling pipe a correspondingly sized nozzle is provided. Accordingly, a fixed installation of the water supply is provided which must not be modified even for the parallel movement of the entire water cooling stretch. Only the water supply to the individual nozzles must be controlled which, according to a further advantageous embodiment of the invention, is preferably carried out by means of a rotary slide.
As an alternative, the loading of the individual nozzles can also be realized by means of other control devices, for example, in the form of adjusting flaps, slide valves or also individual valves.
According to a further advantageous design of the invention, the movement of the entire water cooling stretch as well as the control of the water supply to the cooling water pipes selected by the sliding action, respectively, can be remote-controlled. This provides an optimal control and adaptation to the operational sequence.
In order to be able to perform a faster scrap metal removal when disturbances occur, the guide grooves and/or the cooling water pipes are advantageously designed to fold open so that in the case of a disturbance the scrap metal can be removed in a simple way without other modification work.